Last week, on the way back from Ramallah, we took a taxi from Yatta for the final stretch home. We drove down a dirt road to avoid the IOF but before we reached the street leading up into Tuwani we ran into a barricade made by settlers. The driver had no choice but to turn around and we walked the rest of the way to the guest house, passing all the army and settler vehicles we were trying to avoid. Miraculously we were not stopped.
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I have fallen behind in my updates. I have felt heavy under the weight of the heat. There is no shade here, only sun. I read in the news about a 19 year old girl who died of a heatstroke waiting at a checkpoint. Her mother passed out but regained consciousness after a few hours.
I was lucky to have slept in a cave earlier this week where the cool stone provided a blessed reprieve. Even at night the air is thick with heat. Mosquitoes are beginning to appear and settlers stay out later and play music and shoot guns.
Last night I slept at the house of the family whose truck was burned. The illegal outpost across from them has installed two water tanks and a new structure is being built. They are relentless. Yesterday afternoon a settler shepherd grazed his flock over the family’s land that they now claim as their own. Just now a man on an ATV drove slowly by the house, staring at us eating our breakfast of taboun bread. This house now feels like an island in a dangerous and unpredictable ocean.
The burnt truck rests just past the house, charred inside and out. This family can’t have anything without settlers destroying it. But they remain steadfast.
The sons stop playing ball and watch as two settlers armed with machine guns stroll by the house.
